Deferred bonus for a good leaver at a bank: keep the original schedule or pay out?

Singapore-based regional bank. A senior executive is retiring after 22 years with about S$2.8m of deferred bonus outstanding, vesting over the next three years, in a mix of cash and shares.

He has asked for it to be released at retirement. Our plan rules say good leavers keep their awards on the original schedule, subject to the same reduction provisions, and my reading of supervisory expectations is that accelerating would be very hard to justify.

Has anyone agreed to accelerate for a retiree, and on what grounds? Or is the answer simply no?